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Is it inherently evil to summon up a demon?
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<blockquote data-quote="AuraSeer" data-source="post: 840496" data-attributes="member: 1331"><p>I think the question needs to be restated. By asking, "Is this act evil?" what we really want to know in game terms is, "Will this act eventually change my aligment to evil?"</p><p></p><p>The answer depends on what you think alignment is. IMO, alignment is nothing more than a statement of which <em>detect</em> spells you trigger. If you have done lots of evil deeds, you show up as a blip on <em>detect evil</em>, therefore we say you have an evil alignment. That doesn't necessarily mean you will do evil deeds in the future; it only records the "marks on your soul" from past deeds.</p><p></p><p>Because I interpret alignment this way, I think spells with the [Evil] descriptor will eventually turn you Evil. That's what the descriptor means. Even if you cast <evil spell of your choice> for good reasons, you're touching dark energies which leave their supernatural mark on you. Use the spell enough, and the black marks will build up, eventually becoming stronger than any white marks you have. Past that point, even though you're a "good person" (whatever that means), <em>detect evil</em> will look at the color of your aura and consider you evil.</p><p></p><p>Now, some people see alignment the other way around. Where I argue that bad acts make you "evil", they argue that an Evil alignment is what makes you do bad things. In a world like that, it seems that the only way to change alignment would be by choice (conscious or unconscious). That makes this a much more complicated question, where you get into these questions of relative morality, unintended consequences, the temptations of evil, redemption and repentance, and all kinds of other things that religious philosophers argue about. Me, I got a D- in Philosophy 102, so I'll stick with my simpler interpretation. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AuraSeer, post: 840496, member: 1331"] I think the question needs to be restated. By asking, "Is this act evil?" what we really want to know in game terms is, "Will this act eventually change my aligment to evil?" The answer depends on what you think alignment is. IMO, alignment is nothing more than a statement of which [i]detect[/i] spells you trigger. If you have done lots of evil deeds, you show up as a blip on [i]detect evil[/i], therefore we say you have an evil alignment. That doesn't necessarily mean you will do evil deeds in the future; it only records the "marks on your soul" from past deeds. Because I interpret alignment this way, I think spells with the [Evil] descriptor will eventually turn you Evil. That's what the descriptor means. Even if you cast <evil spell of your choice> for good reasons, you're touching dark energies which leave their supernatural mark on you. Use the spell enough, and the black marks will build up, eventually becoming stronger than any white marks you have. Past that point, even though you're a "good person" (whatever that means), [i]detect evil[/i] will look at the color of your aura and consider you evil. Now, some people see alignment the other way around. Where I argue that bad acts make you "evil", they argue that an Evil alignment is what makes you do bad things. In a world like that, it seems that the only way to change alignment would be by choice (conscious or unconscious). That makes this a much more complicated question, where you get into these questions of relative morality, unintended consequences, the temptations of evil, redemption and repentance, and all kinds of other things that religious philosophers argue about. Me, I got a D- in Philosophy 102, so I'll stick with my simpler interpretation. ;) [/QUOTE]
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Is it inherently evil to summon up a demon?
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